DSU Students Move into Dorm at Former Sheraton Hotel

Posted:
Wednesday, August 21, 2013 7:49 PM EDT

DOVER, Del. (WBOC) - Move-in day felt like check-in day for some students at Delaware State University Wednesday as the first batch of kids moved into the school's newly-acquired dorm, the former Sheraton hotel on US 13 in Dover.

The school need more space and reached an agreement with the building's owners in June. DSU is calling it the Living and Learning Commons.

Tosajhn Hughes just transferred to DSU from UMES. He'll be a junior this year. His room - his dorm room - is on the fourth floor.

"I got an email a few weeks ago that I'd be staying in the old Sheraton Hotel. I was pretty excited."

Hughes says he'd been to the Sheraton once for a conference in high school. But this was his first time in the rooms.

"The rooms look pretty nice," he said. "You don't have to worry about damages. It's not old.""We have redone the rooms and moved things around so the rooms can handle two students at a time," said Carlos Holmes, a spokesman for the university.

Holmes says the building will have more than 200 students in it to start, and it can hold up to 300. Looking around, it still looks a decent amount like the Sheraton. Holmes says the school got to keep a lot of the stuff from the hotel.

"We inherited the luggage carts. They have that to use here. We don't have that at our traditional residential halls."

And there are other differences between this dorm and DSU's others.One of the perks of living in the former Sheraton Hotel, which has weight machines, cardio machines. Another perks is laundry service. The university says keeping that was more cost-effective than converting to self-service machines.

"There's no room service," Holmes said.

There are no bell hops either to help with the moving in.

Soon enough, the kids will put their mark on the space and help complete the transformation from hotel to dorm.

"I'm a music person," Hughes said. "So, there will probably be a lot of music posters and pictures around and such."

Through a $500 discount from the university, room and board at the Living and Learning Commons will be about the same as at many of DSU's other dorms this year.

There's no sidewalk between the dorm and campus yet. So, there will be a shuttle to take kids the quarter mile down US 13.

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